exhibited by the doctor when he wrote her prescription (without
the slightest necessity also).
"Here it is," she said, recovering the lost remembrance. "Not the
gardener, but the gardener's wife. A memorandum to speak to her
about Mrs. Inchbare. Observe, Hopkins, the association of ideas.
Mrs. Inchbare is associated with the poultry; the poultry are
associated with the gardener's wife; the gardener's wife is
associated with the gardener--and so the gardener gets into my
head. Do you see it? I am always trying to improve your mind. You
do see it? Very well. Now about Mrs. Inchbare? Has she been here
again?"
"No, my lady."
"I am not at all sure, Hopkins, that I was right in declining to
consider the message Mrs. Inchbare sent to me about the poultry.
Why shouldn't she offer to take any fowls that I can spare off my
hands? She is a respectable woman; and it is important to me to
live on good terms with al my neighbors, great and small. Has she
got a poultry-yard of her own at Craig Fernie?"
"Yes, my lady. And beautifully kept, I am told."
"I really don't see--on reflection, Hopkins--why I should
hesitate to deal with Mrs. Inchbare. (I don't think it beneath me
to sell the game killed on my estate to the poulterer.) What was
it she wanted to buy? Some of my black Spanish fowls?"
"Yes, my lady. Your ladyship's black Spaniards are famous all
round the neighborhood. Nobody has got the breed. And Mrs.
Inchbare--"
"Wants to share the distinction of having the breed with me,"
said Lady Lundie. "I won't appear ungracious. I will see her
myself, as soon as I am a little better, and tell her that I have
changed my mind. Send one of the men to Craig Fernie with a
message. I can't keep a trifling matter of this sort in my
memory--send him at once, or I may forget it. He is to say I am
willing to see Mrs. Inchbare, about the fowls, the first time she
finds it convenient to come this way."
"I am afraid, my lady--Mrs. Inchbare's heart is so set on the
black Spaniards--she will find it convenient to come this way at
once as fast as her feet can carry her."
"In that case, you must take her to the gardener's wife. Say she
is to have some eggs--on condition, of course, of paying the
price for them. If she does come, mind I hear of it."
Hopkins withdrew. Hopkins's mistress reclined on her comfortable
pillows and fanned herself gently. The vindictive smile
reappeared on her face. "I fancy I shall be well enough to see
Mrs. Inchbare," she thought to herself. "And it is just possible
that the conversation may get beyond the relative merits of her
poultry-yard and mine."
A lapse of little more than two hours proved Hopkins's estimate
of the latent enthusiasm in Mrs. Inchbare's character to have
been correctly formed. The eager landlady appeared at Windygates
on the heels of the returning servant. Among the long list of
human weaknesses, a passion for poultry seems to have its
practical advantages (in the shape of eggs) as compared with the
more occult frenzies for collecting snuff-boxes and fiddles, and
amassing autographs and old postage-stamps. When the mistress of
Craig Fernie was duly announced to the mistress of Windygates,
Lady Lundie developed a sense of humor for the first time in her
life. Her ladyship was feebly merry (the result, no doubt, of the
exhilarating properties of the red lavender draught) on the
subject of Mrs. Inchbare and the Spanish fowls.
"Most ridiculous, Hopkins! This poor woman must be suffering from
a determination of poultry to the brain. Ill as I am, I should
have thought that nothing could amuse me. But, really, this good
creature starting up, and rushing here, as you say, as fast as
her feet can carry her--it's impossible to resist it! I
positively think I must see Mrs. Inchbare. With my active habits,
this imprisonment to my room is dreadful. I can neither sleep nor
read. Any thing, Hopkins, to divert my mind from myself: It's
easy to get rid of her if she is too much for me. Send her up."
Mrs. Inchbare made her appearance, courtesying deferentially;
amazed at the condescension which admitted her within the
hallowed precincts of Lady Lundie's room.
"Take a chair," said her ladyship, graciously. "I am suffering
from illness, as you perceive."
"My certie! sick or well, yer leddyship's a braw sight to see!"
returned Mrs. Inchbare profoundly impressed by the elegant
costume which illness assumes when illness appears in the regions
of high life.
"I am far from being in a fit state to receive any body,"
proceeded Lady Lundie. "But I had a motive for wishing to speak
to you when you next came to my house. I failed to treat a
proposal you made to me, a short time since, in a friendly and
neighborly way. I beg you to understand that I regret having
forgotten the consideration due from a person in my position to a
person in yours. I am obliged to say this under very unusual
circumstances," added her ladyship, with a glance round her
magnificent bedroom, "through your unexpected promptitude in
favoring me with a call. You have lost no time, Mrs. Inchbare, in
profiting by the message which I had the pleasure of sending to
you."
"Eh, my leddy, I wasna' that sure (yer leddyship having ance
changed yer mind) but that ye might e'en change again if I failed
to strike, as they say, while the iron's het. I crave yer pardon,
I'm sure, if I ha' been ower hasty. The pride o' my hairt's in my
powltry--and the black Spaniards' (as they ca' them) are a sair
temptation to me to break the tenth commandment, sae lang as
they're a' in yer leddyship's possession, and nane o' them in
mine."
"I am shocked to hear that I have been the innocent cause of your
falling into temptation, Mrs. Inchbare! Make your proposal--and I
shall be happy to meet it, if I can."
"I must e'en be content wi' what yer leddyship will condescend
on. A haitch o' eggs if I can come by naething else."
"There is something else you would prefer to a hatch of eggs?"
"I wad prefer," said Mrs. Inchbare, modestly, "a cock and twa
pullets."
"Open the case on the table behind you," said Lady Lundie, "and
you will find some writing paper inside. Give me a sheet of
it--and the pencil out of the tray."
Eagerly watched by Mrs. Inchbare, she wrote an order to the
poultry-woman, and held it out with a gracious smile.
"Take that to the gardener's wife. If you agree with her about
the price, you can have the cock and the two pullets."
Mrs. Inchbare opened her lips--no doubt to express the utmost
extremity of human gratitude. Before she had said three words,
Lady Lundie's impatience to reach the end which she had kept in
view from the time when Mrs. Glenarm had left the house burst the
bounds which had successfully restrained it thus far. Stopping
the landlady without ceremony, she fairly forced the conversation
to the subject of Anne Silvester's proceedings at the Craig
Fernie inn.
"How are you getting on at the hotel, Mrs. Inchbare? Plenty of
tourists, I suppose, at this time of year?"
"Full, my leddy (praise Providence), frae the basement to the
ceiling."
"You had a visitor, I think, some time since of whom I know
something? A person--" She paused, and put a strong constraint on
herself. There was no alternative but to yield to the hard
necessity of making her inquiry intelligible. "A lady," she
added, "who came to you about the middle of last month."
"Could yer leddyship condescend on her name?"
Lady Lundie put a still stronger constraint on herself.
"Silvester," she said, sharply.
"Presairve us a'!" cried Mrs. Inchbare. "It will never be the
same that cam' driftin' in by hersel'--wi' a bit bag in her hand,
and a husband left daidling an hour or mair on the road behind
her?"
"I have no doubt it is the same."
"Will she be a freend o' yer leddyship's?" asked Mrs. Inchbare,
feeling her ground cautiously.
"Certainly not!" said Lady Lundie. "I felt a passing curiosity
about her--nothing more."
Mrs. Inchbare looked relieved. "To tell ye truth, my leddy, there
was nae love lost between us. She had a maisterfu' temper o' her
ain--and I was weel pleased when I'd seen the last of her."
"I can quite understand that, Mrs. Inchbare--I know something of
her temper myself. Did I understand you to say that she came to
your hotel alone, and that her husband joined her shortly
afterward?"
"E'en sae, yer leddyship. I was no' free to gi' her house-room in
the hottle till her husband daidled in at her heels and answered
for her."
"I fancy I must have seen her husband," said Lady Lundie. "What
sort of a man was he?"
Mrs. Inchbare replied in much the same words which she had used
"Eh! he was ower young for the like o' _her._ A pratty man, my
leddy--betwixt tall and short; wi' bonny brown eyes and cheeks,
and fine coal-blaik hair. A nice douce-spoken lad. I hae naething
to say against him--except that he cam' late one day, and took
leg-bail betimes the next morning, and left madam behind, a load
on my hands."
The answer produced precisely the same effect on Lady Lundie
which it had produced on Sir Patrick. She, also, felt that it was
too vaguely like too many young men of no uncommon humor and
complexion to be relied on. But her ladyship possessed one
immense advantage over her brother-in-law in attempting to arrive
at the truth. _She_ suspected Arnold--and it was possible, in her
case, to assist Mrs. Inchbare's memory by hints contributed from
her own superior resources of experience and observation.
"Had he any thing about him of the look and way of a sailor?" she
asked. "And did you notice, when you spoke to him, that he had a
habit of playing with a locket on his watch-chain?"
There he is, het aff to a T!" cried Mrs. Inchbare. "Yer
leddyship's weel acquented wi' him--there's nae doot o' that."
"I thought I had seen him," said Lady Lundie. "A modest,
well-behaved young man, Mrs. Inchbare, as you say. Don't let me
keep you any longer from the poultry-yard. I am transgressing the
doctor's orders in seeing any body. We quite understand each
other now, don't we? Very glad to have seen you. Good-evening."
So she dismissed Mrs. Inchbare, when Mrs. Inchbare had served her
purpose.
Most women, in her position, would have been content with the
information which she had now obtained. But Lady Lundie--having a
man like Sir Patrick to deal with--determined to be doubly sure
of her facts before she ventured on interfering at Ham Farm. She
had learned from Mrs. Inchbare that the so-called husband of Anne
Silvester had joined her at Craig Fernie on the day when she
arrived at the inn, and had left her again the next morning. Anne
had made her escape from Windygates on the occasion of the
lawn-party--that is to say, on the fourteenth of August. On the
same day Arnold Brinkworth had taken his departure for the
purpose of visiting the Scotch property left to him by his aunt.
If Mrs. Inchbare was to be depended on, he must have gone to
Craig Fernie instead of going to his appointed destination--and
must, therefore, have arrived to visit his house and lands one
day later than the day which he had originally set apart for that
purpose. If this fact could be proved, on the testimony of a
disinterested witness, the case against Arnold would be
strengthened tenfold; and Lady Lundie might act on her discovery
with something like a certainty that her information was to be
relied on.
After a little consideration she decided on sending a messenger
with a note of inquiry addressed to Arnold's steward. The apology
she invented to excuse and account for the strangeness of the
proposed question, referred it to a little family discussion as
to the exact date of Arnold's arrival at his estate, and to a
friendly wager in which the difference of opinion had ended. If
the steward could state whether his employer had arrived on the
fourteenth or on the fifteenth of August, that was all that would
be wanted to decide the question in dispute.
Having written in those terms, Lady Lundie gave the necessary
directions for having the note delivered at the earliest possible
hour on the next morning; the messenger being ordered to make his
way back to Windygates by the first return train on the same day.
This arranged, her ladyship was free to refresh herself with
another dose of the red lavender draught, and to sleep the sleep
of the just who close their eyes with the composing conviction
that they have done their duty.
The events of the next day at Windygates succeeded each other in
due course, as follows:
The post arrived, and brought no reply from Sir Patrick. Lady
Lundie entered that incident on her mental register of debts owed
by her brother-in-law--to be paid, with interest, when the day of
reckoning came.
Next in order occurred the return of the messenger with the
steward's answer.
He had referred to his Diary; and he had discovered that Mr.
Brinkworth had written beforehand to announce his arrival at his
estate for the fourteenth of August--but that he had not actually
appeared until the fifteenth. The one discovery needed to
substantiate Mrs. Inchbare's evidence being now in Lady Lundie's
chance that Sir Patrick might al ter his mind, and write to her.
If no letter arrived, and if nothing more was received from
Blanche, she resolved to leave Windygates by the next morning's
train, and to try the bold experiment of personal interference at
Ham Farm.
The third in the succession of events was the appearance of the
doctor to pay h
is professional visit.
A severe shock awaited him. He found his patient cured by the
draught! It was contrary to all rule and precedent; it savored of
quackery--the red lavender had no business to do what the red
lavender had done--but there she was, nevertheless, up and
dressed, and contemplating a journey to London on the next day
but one. "An act of duty, doctor, is involved in this--whatever
the sacrifice, I must go!" No other explanation could be
obtained. The patient was plainly determined--nothing remained
for the physician but to retreat with unimpaired dignity and a
paid fee. He did it. "Our art," he explained to Lady Lundie in
confidence, "is nothing, after all, but a choice between
alternatives. For instance. I see you--not cured, as you
think--but sustained by abnormal excitement. I have to ask which
is the least of the two evils--to risk letting you travel, or to
irritate you by keeping you at home. With your constitution, we
must risk the journey. Be careful to keep the window of the
carriage up on the side on which the wind blows. Let the
extremities be moderately warm, and the mind easy--and pray don't
omit to provide yourself with a second bottle of the Mixture
before you start." He made his bow, as before--he slipped two
guineas into his pocket, as before--and he went his way, as
before, with an approving conscience, in the character of a
physician who had done his duty. (What an enviable profession is
Medicine! And why don't we all belong to it?)
The last of the events was the arrival of Mrs. Glenarm.
"Well?" she began, eagerly, "what news?"
The narrative of her ladyship's discoveries--recited at full
length; and the announcement of her ladyship's
resolution--declared in the most uncompromising terms--raised
Mrs. Glenarm's excitement to the highest pitch.
"You go to town on Saturday?" she said. "I will go with you. Ever
since that woman declared she should be in London before me, I
have been dying to hasten my journey--and it is such an
opportunity to go with you! I can easily manage it. My uncle and
I were to have met in London, early next week, for the foot-race.
I have only to write and tell him of my change of
plans.--By-the-by, talking of my uncle, I have heard, since I saw
you, from the lawyers at Perth."
"More anonymous letters?"
"One more--received by the lawyers this time. My unknown
correspondent has written to them to withdraw his proposal, and
to announce that he has left Perth. The lawyers recommended me to
stop my uncle from spending money uselessly in employing the
London police. I have forwarded their letter to the captain; and
he will probably be in town to see his solicitors as soon as I
get there with you. So much for what _I_ have done in this
matter. Dear Lady Lundie--when we are at our journey's end, what
do _you_ mean to do?"
"My course is plain," answered her ladyship, calmly. "Sir Patrick
will hear from me, on Sunday morning next, at Ham Farm."
"Telling him what you have found out?"
"Certainly not! Telling him that I find myself called to London
by business, and that I propose paying him a short visit on
Monday next."
"Of course, he must receive you?"
"I think there is no doubt of that. Even _his_ hatred of his
brother's widow can hardly go to the length--after leaving my
letter unanswered--of closing his doors against me next."
"How will you manage it when you get there?"
"When I get there, my dear, I shall be breathing an atmosphere of
treachery and deceit; and, for my poor child's sake (abhorrent as
all dissimulation is to me), I must be careful what I do. Not a
word will escape my lips until I have first seen Blanche in
private. However painful it may be, I shall not shrink from my
duty, if my duty compels me to open her eyes to the truth. Sir
Patrick and Mr. Brinkworth will have somebody else besides an